Afghanistan or Iraq
by Lonelyadelaide
Summary: Sherlock's pov when Stamford brings John in to the lab. Kiddie characters!


So, this is a random piece I did in about five minutes. Enjoy.

John Watson.

I've heard the name before.

What an ordinary name. John. Something from the Bible? Probably. Apparently everything has to do with the Bible 'in these times' according to Mycroft. Deletable? Blip

Watson. Another name I've heard somewhere. Probably years ago. School! Mrs. Watson, a substitute teacher in 8th grade english we had for two weeks when the first teacher went on a skiing vacation to Sweden, met his dream girl, and never came back. Mrs. Watson had a husband in a war, nobody seemed to know which one. And they had a son my age who was homeschooled because had been bullied at school. And his name was John.

We met one day before he was homeschooled, we were in year something. I was hiding behind a cabinet in the science classroom at recess, playing with a few paper dolls that I saw in the bin. The one with blonde hair was telling the one with black hair that she was pretty even though everyone else said she was ugly, when a scared looking boy with blue eyes and a tired face came hurriedly into the room and started picking through the bin, looking over his shoulder as though scared to be caught. I was silent, though I knew he was looking for the folded figures I held in my hands.

As the boy's face crumpled into tears, I stood up. To this day, I don't know what posessed me to move, for in a few minutes I had grown to love those dolls more than anything.

"Here."

He jumped and wiped his eyes, face a mask of misery at being caught. But then he saw the smiling faces of his playthings and froze. To be honest, so did I. There was a traitorous hope that he would just run and leave the dolls to me, but then he took them and his face melted into a grateful grin.

"Thanks."

We met the next day, armed with sheets of paper and boxes of crayons, a pair of dull scissors and his mother's instructions. We hid in the library every day and played paper dolls. We formed a club and promised eachother we'd be best friends forever. He told me we'd get married and live in a house filled with paper, china, and cloth dolls and then we could play forever. I told him I would be a detective and solve expensive cases and that way we would have enough money to pay for our taxes and rent, and bring his daddy home from Afghanistanoriraq, which is where we heard he was. We nodded seriously. It was our life plan.

The next week on Monday he came to the library as usual, though he had a big bruise on his face. handed me a box of all the paper dolls he had.

"Why?" I asked.

"It's too girly." He said, in an obvious lie. Then, quietly, "they beat me up. I won't talk to you anymore. If I see you again ever, let's pretend we don't know eachother. I hate you." He left me alone in the library.

"I hate you too!" I shouted at his retreating back. He didn't come to school again, and by the weekend it was rumored that he had moved, he had been kidnapped, he had been hurt and died. He had been a prince and gone back to his castle in Italy...

The story I told myself for that week was that he had been an angel who came down from heaven to give me paper dolls made from clouds, and be my friend for a week, but could only go back to his home if he said something that was a lie: he hated me. I knew, at the end of that awful week, that he had been bullied something awful for having a toy and was being taught at home. Mycroft had asked our father about it, and I had snuck out of bed to overhear. When Mrs. Watson taught years later, I asked her about him. She had pursed her lips and frowned at me. I knew she thought I was the reason he was bullied. She wouldn't take the note I wrote to him. I never saw him. I forgot But I had never deleted any of it, only buried it deep where I kept nothing else. I never had any other friends.

I can see you remember. I can see you struggle to keep it hidden. You don't know if it's me. You hurt, and were hurt by, me. My mind races to find a way of showing you that it is me, your doll friend, without making it blatantly clear to Stamford that we know eachother.

It's me. I say with my eyes. You falter.

Me, your paper doll friend, your future husband, the detective!

So I ask you a question and can feel your relief behind me.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?"


End file.
